Chinese newspaper staff fined for swear-word misprint

Beijing, Feb 24 (DPA) A misprint over “arse-kissing” officials in a Chinese newspaper story led to fines for the editorial staff, media reports said. Annoyed by a gushing story of visits by a party functionary to migrant workers, a proof-reader wrote, “How can they kiss arse like that?” on the proof copy, which was mistakenly included in the story when it went into print in the southern Chinese Nanfang Dushibao newspaper.

For weeks, the misprint remained undetected but developed into a scandal when the paper, which has a print run of 420,000, publicly stressed that the misprint had no political motives.

China’s internet censors have since blocked the offending word from the country’s search engines.

Newspaper staff revealed details of the story in their blogs, privately praising the comments.

Baidu, a popular Chinese search engine, Tuesday blocked a search for the incriminating word. The story also was removed from the paper’s online editions, but photos could still be found on the Internet.

According to the Hong Kong South China Morning Post, the paper issued a 1,000-yuan ($146) fine against the proof-reader. The editor who missed the mistake was ordered to pay 500 yuan.